Russia comes full circle: 1980 Moscow-2014 Sochi Games

Feb. 9, 2014
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In this July 7, 1980 file photo, a woman walks past a huge portrait of Communist Party leader Leonid Brezhnev that dwarfs the symbol of the upcoming XXII Summer Olympics right behind, in Moscow. Brezhnev and his ruling Politburo wanted the games to legitimize the Soviet system, a military superpower and economic basket case. / AP

by Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY

by Doug Stanglin, USA TODAY

MOSCOW - For the Soviet Union, hosting the Olympics games in Moscow in 1980 was a very big deal indeed. It was a coming-out party for a country defined for many in the West by a shoe-pounding Nikita Khrushchev and the bloody reign of Joseph Stalin.

It was the first time the Soviets, who jousted with the United States for gold medals every four years, would host their own games.

The Soviet committee rolled out a slightly too cute Disney-style bear -- Misha -- as the mascot, trying to take the edge of the dour image projected by its other well-known figure, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Lenin Stadium, the venerable football venue just below Lenin Hills, got a full makeover. The Soviets finalized plans to haul out of town the drunks and prostitutes who didn't fit the profile of the proper Soviet.

On the field, the games would feature a sensational matchup between British middle-distance runners Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe, expected to go head-to-head for only the second time in their careers.

Relations between Moscow and Washington were on the mend, pushing the worst aspects of the Cold War into the rearview mirror. President Jimmy Carter even tapped Thomas Watson Jr., the former president of IBM, as his ambassador, reflecting a sense that trade, not tanks, would define the superpower relationship.

As a young reporter for United Press International, I got caught up in Olympic fever. The U.S. Embassy hosted a reception for the NBC team preparing to broadcast the big event. That's where I met U.S. swimmer Diana Nyad, equally excited about her stint as an on-camera reporter. We promised to stay in touch when the games started.

Then came Afghanistan.

On Christmas Eve 1979, Soviet troops poured over the border to install Babrak Karmal as head of an increasingly unstable government in Kabul.

The bold stroke would prove to be Moscow"s Vietnam, stirring up nationalistic fervor and a 10-year protracted war from mujahideen fighters who eventually would grow to include Osama bin Laden and would get sophisticated weapons, such as shoulder-fired rockets, from the CIA.

The most immediate reaction came almost overnight, as the upcoming 1980 Olympic Games went from being a bridge to the West to a source of international outrage.

In an era of multiple-head nuclear weapons and Mutually Assured Destruction, there was little the West â?? or the United States â?? could do on the ground.

But Carter felt he had to do something to demonstrate strong Western disapproval.

That something was a call for a boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

The president, of course, couldn't issue an executive order to keep the U.S. athletes home, but he did strongly urge the U.S. Olympic Committee to bow out, leaving U.S. team officials little choice but to go along or risk seriously embarrassing the president.

In the end, 65 countries pulled out. But not all U.S. allies took the hint. France and Britain competed, but not as nations. In the opening parade, those teams opposed to the invasion marched behind an Olympic banner instead of their country flag. When a team member won gold, the Olympic anthem replaced their national anthem.

Soviet citizens, normally staid in the face of the onslaught of Soviet propaganda, were genuinely disappointed at the Western reaction. For them, it had seemed a moment to feel connected with the outside world, which few had the luxury or ability to visit.

The games came off, of course, but under a cloud,like a a divorced dad hosting his first Christmas with the kids. The Western contingents were smaller and the Western tourists fewer. NBC canceled its broadcast plans and stayed home.

Even the Coe-Ovett matchup took an unusual, unsatisfactory turn. Ovett, the world record holder and undisputed champion of the 1,500 meters, lost to Coe in the matchup by three meters. But then, as I watched from the stands, Coe faltered later in his own premier event, the 800 meters, falling to third place behind Ovett in the finals.

Most Soviets kept up their spirits, but the dark cloud got even darker with the death that week of beloved singer-songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky -- a rebellious Bob Dylan figure. His unauthorized funeral with tens of thousands of followers in the streets of Moscow bordered on a riot and hinted at the seething anti-government anger of ordinary Russians just below the surface.

Predictably, the Soviets wasted little time getting their revenge, leading the Soviet bloc out of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, citing vague security concerns. Just as in Moscow, the home team raked in the gold, with its stiffest competition sitting it out.

It took the Russians 34 years -- and the collapse of the Soviet Union -- for President Vladimir Putin to finally usher in a full-fledged Russian Olympics with all the trimmings.

The final irony: The Islamic extremists who threatened to attack these games can trace their rise to the mujahideen movement spawned by the Soviet invasion that turned the 1980 Games into the might-have-been Games.